Alexandra Daw

“And alongside this decision there was some forfeiture in the thought he found unsettling: that for every pound of weight they’d carried across their backs, for every drop of sweat that had poured off, no inch of this land was theirs. As long as they stayed, they were no better than the others, kept on the borders of town, hidden among the trees just like their brothers and sisters. And it grew clear that the only path to a life worth living would be found elsewhere, where they might not have more but could not possibly have less.”
― Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water

“It is context...that gives meaning.

[Harry Nicholl]”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“Of the Scriptorium men, Mr. Sweatman was the last to return to work. He shook Gareth's hand and took mine to kiss it.

'How proud and happy your father would have been,' he said, and I held his gaze, knowing the memory of Da was stronger when it was shared.

[Esme Nicholl]”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words

“Was it more obscene to say it, to write it, or to set it in type? On the breath it could taken by a breeze or crowded out by chatter; it could be misheard or ignored. On the page it was a real thing. It had been caught and pinned to a board, its letters spread in a particular way so that anyone who saw it would know what it was.”
― Pip Williams, The Dictionary of Lost Words